


heaven and hell were words to me

by sapphfics



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Adultery, Clary Fray has Abandonment Issues, F/F, Longing, Mental Health Issues, War, i named it after a hozier song, sorry jace, they’re fucked up okay sjldfnj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 15:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20409793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphfics/pseuds/sapphfics
Summary: Isabelle Lightwood reaches out to her two weeks after Jace leaves.Or: Clary’s a lonely military wife and Isabelle is always there for her.





	heaven and hell were words to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clizzyhours](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clizzyhours/gifts).

> for holly,  
inspired by [this post](https://hotmeat89.tumblr.com/post/185204258803/have-fun-in-the-war-dumbass-ill-be-at-home)  
i swear, this was meant to be happier. and smuttier. then it wasn’t...i will write something happy one day (might add more to this tbh) but i love you <3333333333

Isabelle Lightwood reaches out to her two weeks after Jace leaves. 

And yeah, Clary’s lonely. She will admit that. Terribly, all consumingly lonely. Hasn’t left her bed lonely. Don’t get her wrong, she knew what she was signing up for when she let Jace put a ring on her finger, but she can’t even remember speaking her vows, and yet, she must have because here she is — married and alone, again.  
It could be worse. She could be pregnant. 

She hasn’t seen Isabelle since her wedding a year ago. Ever since Jace found his biological family, he’s grown distant from the people that took him in as a child. Clary wants to feel bad for them, but if she’s honest, she doesn’t really mind. She’s pretty sure Jace’s brother Alec despises her and she’d sooner stab Jace with a large curved blade than see him again. 

Isabelle, however, is a different story. 

Isabelle is the most beautiful woman Clary has ever met, and everytime she so much as glances in Clary’s direction her mouth goes dry and she can’t form a sentence. Somehow, Isabelle and she had become friends before Jace moved her away.  
She’s missed her more than anyone.  
So when Isabelle turns up on Clary’s doorstep at two o’clock in the afternoon to see Clary still in her nightgown, her red hair as fluffy as goose feathers, Clary wants the ground to open up and swallow her whole. 

“...Hi,” Clary starts. 

“I’m Isabelle,” Isabelle says and smiles like Clary doesn’t look like she crawled backwards out a hedge. “You’re Clarissa Herondale, aren’t you? I apologise if I got your surname wrong, Jace does change his so frequently.”

“Yes,” Clary says. “I don’t mind. I hated my father’s last name. Glad to be rid of it.”

“Is that why your father wasn’t at the wedding?” Isabelle asks, like she actually cares, so even though Clary hates answering questions about her father she does.

“Luke Greymark was at the wedding,” Clary replies. “He raised me, even though I’m obviously not his. My birth father is dead.” 

Clary remembers the rush of adrenaline as she had shoved one of her new kitchen knives into her father’s gut ten times and let him bleed out on one of her mother’s rugs. She’d smiled as she’d done it. Jace survived the fatal wounds her father had inflicted upon him, swore he’d be with her forever, and now he’s left her again. She tries not to think of any of this. She tries. She does. 

To ground herself back in the present, she thinks of Isabelle and of how every second Clary spends with her feels like the sun shining on her face after years underground. 

“Luke is a good man,” Isabelle remarks. “Haven’t seen much of him, though. Pity.”

“He doesn’t see me much either these days, if that makes you feel any better. He’s busy running a restaurant, and that makes him happy, and I’m happy for him.” Clary says. She tries to mean it. She doesn’t want to be as selfish as she is inside her own head. Everyone would hate her if she spoke her mind, and then she would be completely alone again. “You’re the first person I’ve spoken to in...days.” 

“I’m honoured,” Isabelle says and somehow her smile grows and the world outside looks a little less daunting. “Could I come in, or do you want to get dressed? Don’t feel pressured, I don’t mind either way.” 

Is she flirting? Clary wonders. Do I mind?

She’s been stuck in this house for so long she forgets that people outside of Jace can see her. Can find her attractive. Can flirt with her. She forgets she exists, sometimes. Sometimes she thinks it would be better for everyone if she didn’t.  
Clary nods and moves to let Isabelle through the front door.  
“You have a lovely home,” Isabelle says. 

She’s either very good at lying or extremely polite, because the house is a mess. Clary shows her to the sitting room. 

“I can make you tea?” Clary says, like it’s a question. “How do you take it?” 

Clary hates tea. She hated it ever since her mother vanished when she was eighteen, and Detective Hodge had given it to her instead of offering any actual help. Jace only ever subsists on coffee and sarcasm. She’s never had to consider this before. 

“Uh,” Isabelle starts, like she wasn’t expecting to have to answer a question like this. “Two-two sugars?” 

“Sure,” Clary says, trying to sound more confident than she actually is. She turns the kettle on, then goes into her bedroom to change.

Clary’s only been a housewife for a year and she is not exactly in her element. She hasn’t got much to go off of. Her own mother wasn’t a housewife. Clary was never quite sure what her mother did for a living, only that every month or so they got a cheque in the mail from a man with the last name Bane. They never had a chance to settle down, always moving from state to state in case Valentine found them, because no one would care if he did anything to her mother.

She looks over at her bedside table to see the only photo of her mother that survived the fire. A snapshot of her and her mother and Luke, looking the happiest they ever were. Luke’s friend Sam had taken it. 

The first and only time that Alec had been allowed into their house was the night after Jace left. He had thrown the picture frame at the wall and cracked the glass, before screaming at her that she was a whore who ruined everything. The screaming wasn’t unusual, so much so that the insults didn’t sting anymore, but Clary had wanted to break his nose for touching the photo. Alec seemed to believe that Clary had bewitched Jace into in-listing. Alec believed a lot of things about Clary that weren’t true, but so did everyone. When Alec finally stopped screaming, he started sobbing. And Clary had started crying too, so she just hugged him even though he had been ready to strangle her, until he finally left of his own accord. 

That’s why Isabelle is here, Clary assumes, to make up for her brother’s mistakes.  
Clary hasn’t found the time to replace the glass. It’s still got some of her blood on it, from when she tried to pick up the glass pieces with her bare hands. 

Her mother was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant in a back alley, and Luke had been right all along, because no one cared that Valentine’s whore was dead. Hodge said she must have killed herself.

Jace’s mother, though, was alive and well. Clary supposes she could model being a housewife off of Maryse, but Maryse seems perpetually miserable and well aware of her husband’s numerous affairs. Clary decided long ago to never become her.

She assumes this is part of why Isabelle makes her so nervous. She looks a lot like her mother, and Maryse worries Clary. 

Maybe it’s that, or maybe it’s because Isabelle is the first person to ever look at her like she’s worth anything, and because Isabelle is a woman who will escape the draft and she won’t leave like Jace, like her mother, like everyone always does—

Clary digs her heels into the carpet and pulls on an old dress she found in the back of her closet. It’s black. Most of her clothes are. It was one of the first things Jace had ever noticed about her when he saw her in that club a few years back, that she looked like she’d just left a funeral. She hadn’t, of course, but she’s now attended too many funerals to count. She manages to drag a brush through her hair and tries to smile at the mirror. Tries to smile the way Isabelle does, effortlessly. 

Clary doesn’t have the teeth for it though. She shuts her lips. The necklace her mother gave her hangs around her neck like a noose. If she shuts her eyes and grips it tight in her palm, sometimes she can still see her alive and well and smiling.  
Clary thinks of Isabelle. Tries to smile again. It looks a bit more convincing, and less like she’s about to rip someone’s throat out. 

“You’re back,” Isabelle says as if Clary was believed dead. “Sit, please.” 

“I need to get your tea—“

Isabelle laughs, suddenly, and it makes Clary breath hitch. “I don’t want tea. I want to talk to you, Clary Fairchild.” 

“Why me?” Clary asks. “Jace isn’t here, and Alec hates me. You don’t have to play nice with me, you know.” 

“I’m not playing nice, Clary. I like you,” Isabelle says. “Alec can just come across...hostile. But I like to think I don’t, do I?” 

“Well, you’ve been in my home for ten minutes and you haven’t tried to destroy family photographs,” Clary remarks. “So you’re already a miles ahead of Alec.” 

“He did what?” Isabelle says. Oh. She didn’t know? 

“You...you’re really not here to just apologise for him?” Clary says. 

“I just said, I’m here to see you, Clary,” Isabelle smiles again, that winning smile that makes Clary feel like she’s the only person in the whole world. “Sit with me, please.”  
The seat is rather small, so Clary almost ends up sitting in Isabelle’s lap. Neither of them mind, though. 

Isabelle is easy to like, once Clary gets over the initial nervousness. Her laugh is as easy as her smile, and Clary feels special, like she went to bed and woke up in one of her mother’s romance novels where the sky is forever blue and no one ever dies. 

“I’m so...lonely,” Clary says. “Jace couldn’t even stick around for a year. I’m so tired of being left behind, and I know I’m not the only one he left but—” 

“You have me now,” Isabelle states, as though it would take a pack of angels to rip her away. “And that’s not gonna change.” 

“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Clary says. “Selfish prick. Just packed up in the middle of the night and left me a note.” 

Isabelle strokes a hand through her hair, the way Jace might have. But Isabelle is nothing like Jace. 

She’s still here. 

Clary isn’t exactly thinking straight the first time she kisses Isabelle. She just wants her mind to screaming. “Oh god, I’m so so sorry—“ 

She expects Isabelle to slap her, or run away in disgust. 

“I never wanted you as my sister.” Isabelle confesses. “I only ever wanted you.” 

Clary kisses her again, because it makes her feel alive, and because Isabelle doesn’t hate her, and because she wants to let herself be selfish just once. 

Isabelle doesn’t go home that night.


End file.
